A Secret Admirer 3: Spike's Sacrifice (AU)

by 1jckuhn

Chapter 4: What's The Matter with Smolder? Part 1

The School of Friendship, Smolder's Dorm Room
October 17, 2019

Smolder sniffed as she looked out the window of her dorm room. It was the fifth day without her better half. Her Spike. Her one true love. To her, however, it felt like it was five weeks, five months, five years, five centuries. She hated every second of every day that Spike wasn't with her. Even though she had listened to Fluttershy's speech intently, she found herself unable to move on no matter how hard she tried.

Smolder's friends didn't know what to do. Although they missed Spike as well, they had taken the advice of Fluttershy's speech and were trying to move on. They had tried to reach out to her to provide her with some type of comfort in those three days between when Spike died to his funeral, but she just distanced herself from everyone and when one of them did run into her, she usually looked like she was about to cry and usually did when they assured her it would be "okay". When they were at the funeral, Smolder's breakdown after her funeral speech was probably the worst mental episode that they had seen from her. They knew Smolder was grieving and she needed time to cope, but they had never seen her this emotionally shattered before.

"This sucks," grumbled Gallus to the others. "Our friend is totally crushed and we can do nothing to help her."

"I know," sighed Sandbar. "What can we do, though? She's just vegetating in her room most of the time there has to be some way we can reach her."

"A better question would be why she seems the saddest out of Spike's whole harem," Gallus said. "I mean sure she thought of Spike as more than a friend, but everyone else in his harem is coping better with the event than Smolder is."

"I feel like there's a deeper pain in Smolder that we can't even begin to imagine," Ocellus thought aloud. "Problem is we have no way of telling if that's true or not."

"Yona agree with Changeling statement," Yona added.

"I actually have an idea," Silverstream chimed in. "But I don't know if you'll all be on board with it."

"Tell us, Silvy," Gallus said.

Silverstream couldn't help but blush slightly as Gallus' nickname for her. For the past four months, the Hippogriff and Griffon had found themselves falling for each other. Three weeks ago, they had finally decided to act on their feelings for each other and go on a date. They had enjoyed it and since then, the two had become a couple. They couldn't be happier together. Silverstream had even moved her stuff into his dorm room so they could spend night after night snuggling in bed with each other. Lucky for her, Gallus had mistakenly been placed in a dorm room that was meant for two people rather than one. He was going to move out but changed his mind once Silverstream and he got together.

"Well, Smolder does have that big, red Dragon as a brother," Silverstream explained. "I forget his name, but I believe it starts with a "G". She did also mention the he's a poet."

"Oh, that guy?" Sandbar asked. "He is known for being brash, but, according to Smolder, he's trying to snap out of that, and he does care very deeply for his sister. It's worth a shot. Let's try it."

The others nodded in agreement. At this point, they'd do anything to pull their friend out of the dumps. Right as they were heading out the door, however, they happened to run into the dragon they were looking for.

"Whoa, easy there," Garble said.

"You're just the dude we were looking for," Gallus said.

"Oh, really?" Garble asked.

"Yes, really," Gallus replied. "Listen it's about your sister, Smolder. We've all been noticing she's been taking Spike's death the hardest out of Spike's whole harem, but every time we try to reach out to her, she just distances herself from us. We're wondering if maybe you could nudge her in the right direction."

Garble let out a sigh, "I haven't had much luck with cheering up Smolder either. I've seen her sad before, but I've always managed to perk her back up. This time around, however, nothing has worked, and I've run out of both options and ideas, As much as I don't want to admit it, this is something that I can't do alone. If we're going to have any hope of pulling Smolder out of her despair, we're going to need everyone to help out. This includes your teachers."

"I'll get them," Sandbar said and ran off.

TIME SKIP

True to his word, Sandbar had gathered the Element Bearers, Starlight Glimmer, the Crusaders, and Gabby and led them back to the Friendship Castle's library. Now, all 16 creatures were sitting down ready to listen to what Garble had to say.

"Alright," Garble began. "I've already told Smolder's friends this and I need to let you all know too. Smolder is having the hardest time out of any of you coping with Spike's death. I've tried everything I can think of to help her, but nothing's worked. I may be her big brother, but I've come to realize that I won't get anywhere in comforting her without all of you helping me out. I've seen her upset, but never like this. Twilight, I know you're big on books. Do you have anything on Dragons that may provide some explanation for why she's like that and maybe a solution for this situation as well?"

Twilight's face lit up, "As a matter of fact, I do."

Her horn lit up and a large, thick, brown book that had cursive italicized letters on the front cover that read, "ALL ABOUT DRAGONS" came hovering down from the upper stories of the shelves bathed in a purple aura. it was this very book that had revealed the possibility of Spike having a harem with the girls he loved. It took the Alicorn just seconds to find the section she was looking for, "Here we go."

She spun the book around to face the other creatures and they began to read it over.

Mate Loss

In the event of that a mate dies, the surviving dragon will usually be left grieving. Signs of this include a loss of interest of activities they once enjoyed, alienating themselves from others they are close to, and expressing regret over a situation in which the mate has died. Dragons are naturally very faithful creatures and will usually choose their mate or mates for the rest of their lives and instances of a full recovery are rare in the cases of Dragons who alienate themselves completely from other creatures. However, in the event that others the surviving Dragon is close to are kept near, their chance of moving on and making peace increases significantly.

After a solid minute of processing the blunt explanation provided by the text, Fluttershy spoke up.

"Well, you read what the text said," she announced in a tone becoming more like bold Fluttershy. "We cannot stand by and allow one of our own to wallow in her misery while we go on with our lives."

"Agreed," added Twilight. "You know, Smolder's always tried to act normal whenever she's around us. I suppose she's trying to hide the fact that she's emotionally crushed."

"She does that a lot. Even around me," Garble sighed. "So, what's the plan? I really don't know how to cheer her up."

"Leave it to me, Garble," Fluttershy said kindly. "I think I know exactly what to say to her."

With that said, the 16 creatures raced off back to the dorm rooms to try and put a smile on their depressed friend's face. Garble could only hope that the pain hadn't become too much for his little sister to handle and prayed she didn't do something drastic.

Comments

[Spuke]

honestly I would have liked to see a story where all the girls reject spike, imagine that your 12 crushes reject you at the same time, that would be interesting to read